TWO men were pulled to safety by firefighters early yesterday after becoming trapped in sinking mudflats.

The 25-year-olds got into difficulty in Lower Heswall, Merseyside.

"One man sank up to his knees but the other sank deeper with the mud rising up to his neck, the Fire Service said.

A Merseyside Fire Service spokeswoman added, "The men were pulled to safety using rescue lines, salvage sheets and triple extension rescue ladders.

"The males were washed down, dressed in paper suits and space blankets prior to the arrival of the ambulance service, who took them to Arrow Park Hospital in Birkenhead, suffering from shock."

A WELL-DRESSED man found wandering and confused stunned care workers by giving a virtuoso piano performance.

The mystery man has not uttered a word since police picked him up in early April walking aimlessly around Sheerness in Kent. All efforts to communicate with the shy man, in his 20s or early 30s, have failed.

Staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital gave him a pen and paper in the hope he might write his name or even draw his country's flag. Instead, in an extraordinary development, the patient chose only to draw detailed pictures of a grand piano.

His social worker, Michael Camp, decided to show him the hospital piano and to his amazement the man delivered a stunning, two-hour performance of classical playing.

REBEL MP George Galloway was last night preparing to fly to Washington to fight claims he profited from Saddam Hussein's regime. Mr Galloway will appear before US senators who accused him of receiving vouchers for millions of barrels of oil from the former dictator.

The Respect MP yesterday vowed to clear his name. "I am going to accuse them of being involved in a huge diversion from the real issues in Iraq, which are the theft of billions of dollars worth of Iraq's wealth by the United States of America and its corporations and the deaths of more than 100,000 people in Iraq, the destruction of the country, the opening of the doors to Islamic extremism."